The short-term impacts of COVID-2019 on depressive symptoms and cognitive decline: A community-based cohort study

Neurological and psychological sequelae may persist after the infection of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Depression and cognitive decline could increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease.

To estimate the impacts of COVID-19 on depressive symptoms and cognitive decline.

The data was from Beijing Research on Ageing and Vessel (BRAVE), which included all residents in the Xishan community. The first wave survey was performed from October to November 2019 (baseline) before the COVID-19 pandemic. The second wave survey was interrupted into two periods due to the introduction of the Ten New Measures, from October to November 2022 (no participants were infected) and from March to April 2023 (most participants were infected), providing an excellent opportunity to investigate the short-term impacts of COVID-19 on depressive symptoms and cognitive function with linear mixed models.

Among a total of 1012 participants, the median (interquartile range, IQR) age at baseline was 60.00 (56.00, 65.00) years, with 374 (36.96%) men and 479 participants COVID-19 infected. Compared with uninfected participants, the infected did not suffer pronounced depressive symptoms (β = -0.047; 95% CI -0.204 to 0.110) and accelerated declines in global cognition (β = 0.116; 95% CI -0.001 to 0.234) from wave 1 to wave 2. Sensitive analyses shared generally consistent findings.

The impacts of COVID-19 infection on depressive symptoms and cognitive decline were not significant among participants in the BRAVE cohort. Further research is needed to investigate the long-term impacts on neurological and psychiatric symptoms.